Category: Anabaptist Perspectives

The following is taken from an interview with Elijah Yoder conducted by Reagan Schrock. Elijah is a pastor and has been a full time teacher at Sharon Mennonite Bible Institute for over 25 years. He lives with his family in Harrisonville, Pennsylvania.

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Anabaptists have historically tried to live a holy life style and not follow the things of worldly culture. Hence, we dress differently, are nonresistant, don’t go to war, and our ladies wear the veiling. When conservative Mennonites began starting mission outreaches in the 1930’s to 1950’s, missions was a new thing for them. They wondered, “How are we going to teach? What do we do?” Typically they followed the methods of the Protestants, but they expected the results to be different. Missionaries were going out to save and bring salvation, but they didn’t follow up on discipleship.

Almost all of the missions that were started in that era have lost many of their conservative principles. They’ve lost the veiling, nonresistance, and nonconformity to the world. Obviously there are a lot of reasons that could bring this result, but one reason is simply that Mennonite missionaries didn’t evaluate their methods, which we still see happening today.

In Protestant/Calvinist organizations, the goal is primarily to just get people saved, but there is little focus on discipleship and follow-up. In relation to missions, the methods of Protestants and Mennonites haven’t been all that different. What I would like to suggest is that one of the keys to being successful Mennonite missionaries and planting churches that are truly discipling others and following the Lord, not just in belief but also in principal and lifestyle, is to develop one-on-one relationships, discipling, and teaching biblical principles and what the Word of God says. Whether it is on the mission field or at home, we need more one-on-one mentoring and intentional relationships in our circles today.

I recall when I was a student at SMBI, I did my thesis on teaching Anabaptist principles on the mission field. The first missionary that I sat down to do an interview with was Jacob Coblentz, who was a missionary in Mexico and Texas. My goal was to try and figure out what methods a Mennonite missionary needs to use. I came fully prepared with all kinds of questions to ask him, but after I asked him a few he said, “Love the people.” I asked him some more questions and he said, “Well, just love the people.” That’s all he would say: “Love. Love. Love.” I got kind of frustrated with him, but really that is the answer. It’s not in methods or what you do. It’s not that methods won’t work, but if you’re going to do kids clubs, for example, the way you’re going to bring those children into the church is through loving them in one-on-one relationships.

As Anabaptists our stance is often counter-cultural, which can be either an advantage or a disadvantage. If you’re not loving the people, and you’re trying to force them to live or act a certain way, such as putting on a plain coat or a cape dress so that you can get some stars in your crown with the people back home, it’s not going to work very well. If you really love people and they can feel the love of Christ coming through you, then those things are not difficulties; they are not barriers. In fact, when people understand, for example, what the veiling means and what it’s for; when they understand why you’re doing the things you are and it has a relationship behind it, it’s going to be powerful. We don’t need to put aside what makes us different to reach more people.

Divorce and remarriage is one counter-cultural issue that we as Anabaptists have taken a clear biblical stand against. This can be difficult because some might say, “We’re shutting people out.” I have seen people throw this doctrine aside, but then what happens in the next generation when you have divorce and remarriage in your church? You wind up with broken homes and young people who are hurting as a result. Is having a strong stance on divorce and remarriage a hindrance? In one sense it’s going to be, but allow that practice to enter the church and you’re going to bring hurt and pain down the road. I don’t believe that biblical principles are going to be a handicap to reaching out to people, but if we’re not loving, then they can be. On the other hand, I do think we have to be careful about differentiating between what is cultural and what is Bible. Yes, a lot of things we believe are cultural in some senses, but they are deeply rooted in biblical principles.

On the mission field, it’s important that missionaries don’t just take along their culture, but they take the love of God with them; then you have something attractive to give to people. The key to teaching Anabaptist principles on the mission field is to have the Fruit of the Spirit in your life. The key is for each of us to have a relationship with God and to do what we do because of our love for God, not just to impress the people around us or to fit in. Our actions and mission have to come out of the heart and a sincere Christ filled love for all people.

The following is taken from an interview with Clifford Schrock conducted by Reagan Schrock. Cliff is administrator and teacher at Sharon Mennonite Bible Institute where he has served for over ten years. He is best known for his classes on the topics of nonresistance, apologetics, and separation from the world. Cliff lives with his family in Harrisonville, Pennsylvania.

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What is the “simple life”? The simple life is often defined as canning food, making your own clothes, having campfires, and things of that sort. Maybe that’s part of it, but that’s not really what the simple life is all about. Simple life is about having a singleness of focus. In 2 Corinthians 11:3, Paul uses the word simplicity: “But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.” The word simplicity is drawn from the Greek ἁπλότης (hap-lot’-ace), which means singleness or sincerity, the opposite of hypocrisy. Os Guinness spoke of the concept of “an audience of one,”1 living with a single focus towards God, a single eye like Jesus talks about in Matthew chapter 5. Mark 12:30-31 speaks of this as well when it says, “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”

The simple life is not a list of “do this” or “do that.” It is not just an idea or a theological concept. The simple life needs to be woven into the fabric of our lives. Singleness of mind and focus is about discipleship. It’s about following the Master and learning to talk, think and live like Him. The simplicity of discipleship is wanting to be like Christ, to take on the mind of Christ; “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.”2 From a theological or philosophical perspective, the simple life is a worldview. It is taking the words of Jesus and the writings of the New Testament seriously, putting them into shoe leather in our lives. Sometimes we reduce the Christian life to checking boxes, thinking that we can check off the right boxes and thereby live a simple life. But the simple life is much bigger than that. It’s a way of thinking about life with a single goal and focus, which is to do the will of the Father.

Jesus had conflicting desires, we can see this very clearly in the Garden of Gethsemane. He would have had conflicting desires throughout His human life, but He had a single goal and that was to do the will of the Father. The simple life can look pretty complex, but really it comes down to just loving people, loving the Lord our God, and loving our neighbor as ourselves. It is having a singleness of focus and doing whatever God calls you to do. If He calls you to Tibet, then the simple life is to follow His call to Tibet. If He calls you to live in Lancaster County, then the simple life is to follow Him in Lancaster County. It would be much easier to check off five or six boxes and say, “Now I’ve got it.” It’s much more difficult to follow the heart of God. Jesus said, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.”3 As humans we live with conflicting desires. We want our own way, but as followers of Jesus we know we should do it His way.

The simple life, as I understand and see it in Scripture, is to follow Christ. He may call people to different things in that simple life. He may call some to a vow of poverty. He may call people to other things such as business, or farming, and other aspects of “normal life.” Regardless of where we are called and whatever we’re called to do, it has to be undergirded by yieldedness. The early Anabaptists had a German word for it: “gelassenheit” or yieldedness. We may live the “simple life,” but we lack the brokenness and yieldedness to do what God calls us to do and to follow wherever He calls us. To enter into the simple life is to take up our cross, deny ourselves, become broken and yielded,follow Him, and seek to become like Him; living out His vision given to us in Scripture for what Kingdom citizens should look like and how they should live. This should become very practical, including the things we often consider when we think of a simple life: our dress, the way we drive, the cars we drive, the houses we live in, all of that. It should be expressed and affect those practical parts of our lives.

It’s not about a list. It’s about committing to that to which God calls us. The Jews also had their lists. Alms, prayer, and fasting were three key trademarks of Jewish piety to which Jesus spoke directly. They were doing their list; they were putting in their alms, they were praying, they were fasting; but obviously they missed something. It’s not about the list, it’s about the heart, which then becomes part of the fabric of our lives. Living the simple life is connected with our salvation and sanctification journey, it is a lifetime of transformation. We are daily being transformed as we behold His glory and are conformed into the image of His Son. The simple life on the one hand is very simple, but on the other it can be very difficult, and that’s part of the journey of following Christ.

The following message comes to us from Val Yoder who serves as pastor at Kitchi Pines Mennonite Church in Bemidji, Minnesota. He is a part-time teacher at Sharon Mennonite Bible Institute and helped establish Institute for Global Opportunities (IGO), a missionary training school in Chiang Mai, Thailand. “Get in the Way of Evil” was originally published in the Summer 2017 issue of Daughters of Promise magazine (used by permission).

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When the Apostle Andrew was captured and brought before Governor Aegeas, Aegeas told Andrew, “If you don’t stop preaching this message about Jesus and his cross, I’m going to crucify you on one too.”

Andrew replied, “Sir, I would not have preached about the glory of the cross, if I was not willing to die on one.”

He was taken and tied to the splintery wooden beams of a cross, where he hung in excruciating pain. He preached the Gospel for three days until he finally went to be with the treasure of his heart 1.

Much of the Western church has deceived herself into thinking that she lives in a very unique dispensation (or geography) where Jesus’ words don’t apply. Even as contemporary Anabaptists we have passed off His clear, undisputable statements as not applying to us. We agree that what He said was true in the early church, and then to some degree throughout the Middle Ages. We see the truth of His words again in the Reformation and even today in some other remote parts of the world. “But”, we think, “praise God that His words aren’t true for us and haven’t been for our parents, or our grandparents, and beyond them, well … that’s too long ago to worry about.”

Jesus said, “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you […] If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you […].” (John 15:18-20)

We smugly say, “Thank you, Lord, that we don’t live in such a traumatic era of history.” But Jesus was not saying you might suffer persecution, some will suffer persecution, or if you are carnal Christians you will suffer persecution. If we follow Him, we will be persecuted. What does our lack of persecution say about us?

I have lived too much of my life denying this truth, hoping it was not true. I grieve over what sweet intimacy with Christ that denial has cost me. Until we are ready to die with Christ, literally, we are not prepared to live with Him either.

Jesus was not speaking metaphorically when He tells us, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it.” (Luke 9:23-24).

A metaphor is a figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable, in order to suggest a resemblance. Is Jesus only a metaphoric king? Was His death only metaphoric? No. Some would say, “But we don’t really die, that’s too radical, too hyper-spiritual—a martyr’s complex.”

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did more than metaphorically refuse to bow to the idol Nebuchadnezzar had erected. They did more than stand in their hearts while they knelt with their bodies. They stood out in that multitude like a sore thumb because they got in the way of evil.

Christ was talking about more than passing out tracts and singing in the park when He said, “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.” (John 12:32). That lifting up was His death. It was the Cross. It was laying down physical life, not metaphoric life. That was how Jesus got in the way of evil. Jesus’ words make it clear we will never win Western culture for the Kingdom of Christ through volleyball tournaments, Amish-made furniture, or even our church services. All of these may have a legitimate place, but they are not our means of getting in the way of evil. We must jump into the fray and tangle with the enemy. Persecution is not a toothache or a disgruntled neighbor. Persecution is getting scratched, clawed, bitten and maybe eaten by the enemy.

In October of 2014 a young boy slipped and fell into a tiger enclosure at the New Delhi Zoo. The surprised tiger watched and “played” with the crouching boy for fifteen minutes. Bystanders watched, yelled, threw stones and videoed, but no one went to his rescue. The boy was carried off and killed by the giant cat. If that was your son, would you have videoed the event? Would you have yelled and screamed for fifteen minutes? Or would you have convinced some friends to join you in saving his life?

Adam also dismissed his responsibility. When he faced a situation that mattered the most to God, to Eve, to his children, to all mankind, he stood and watched as the serpent spoke to his wife. He watched evil progress without intervening.

The foundational difference between the early Christians and their enemies is that they did not believe they needed to survive. They did not expect to survive. We declare at our missions conferences, “Go your ways: behold, I send you forth as lambs among wolves.” (Luke 10:3) This is not a survival course. No Biblical doctrine guarantees our safety when the wolves of godlessness surround us.

The scandal of Christ’s trial was the ultimate display of this world’s total injustice. The justice system found Him innocent, but still they whipped him, made a crown of thorns and pressed it onto His head, and hit Him with the palms of their hands. These actions rage against justice. Do not depend on a speck of fairness in the system that will persecute you. Do not expect justice when you get in the way of evil.

In 400 A.D., a monk named Telemachus happened to be near a Roman stadium just as a brutal gladiators’ battle began. He was sickened.

“In the name of Jesus, stop!” he shouted, but no one heard. People screamed to see more blood. Telemachus jumped over the wall into the stadium and landed among the gladiators. He yelled again, “In the name of Jesus, stop!”

The surprised gladiators halted their fighting long enough to hear his cry. Furious at his interruption, they chased him down. When the dust settled, Telemachus lay dead on the floor of the stadium. The crowd was finally totally silent. The sight of a dead monk shocked everyone. Slowly the crowd began to leave. The gladiators and finally the emperor left, leaving only Telemachus’ body. Within an hour the emperor issued an edict: “No more war games in the stadium.”2

We must be willing to step between the abused and the abuser and shout, “In the name of Jesus, stop!” Stop divorces, abortions, church splits, pornography. We are not called to passive observance of sin. It is active confrontation with sin. Stepping into its way. Crashing the gates of hell. We do not step between the abused and the abuser with carnal weapons. We step between with spiritual weapons that are mighty through God for the pulling down of strongholds. We step between the seeker and the lie, the brotherhood and the post-modernist, the sodomite and his life-style.

It is a grievous shame that we can argue on Facebook about the morality of relating to the gay community or the ethics of transgender bathrooms, and remain unengaged with the neighbor who aborts her baby and the fellow employee who is cheating on his wife.

Sisters, every time you appear in public with your elegant and modest dress, you are graphically getting in the way of evil. You are called upon to demonstrate the beauty of holiness to this decadent and immoral Western culture that allows Hollywood to determine the undress of this sensual culture.

If American Christians were willing to get in the way of evil, the country’s jails would probably be populated with Christians.

Jesus came to die so that we might live. He sends us to die so that others might live. This was to be a repeated cycle throughout the New Testament dispensation. We blissfully sing, “This is my commandment that ye love one another, that your joy may be full,” but ignore the next verse, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:11-13)

We are told that, “… [T]he time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.” (John 16:2) We live in a time when this is, again, literally true. The baptism of blood is not metaphoric, it is the commitment level of anyone entering the “armed forces” of Christ’s Kingdom. It is the resolution of anyone who will get in the way of evil.

Do not be unduly alarmed at the fiery ordeals which come to test your faith, as though this were some abnormal experience. Death has lost its victory. Death is only the passageway from a decadent and broken world to the beauty and health of Heaven.

Rejoice when you are called to share Christ’s sufferings. One day, when He shows Himself in full splendor to men, you will be filled with the most tremendous joy. You will walk through the parks and gardens of Heaven, fellowship with the redeemed, and feast at the tables of the New Jerusalem. You will be with a holy, beautiful Bridegroom of perfect character and love who unveils all the mysteries of our previous, present, and eternal life. “I will never leave you nor forsake you” 3 will gain new meaning. Gratification will never end. Beauty will endlessly increase. Desire will be forever fulfilled.

Most people know that we will worship God in heaven, but they cannot guess how thrilling it will be. If we would get the briefest keyhole peek of the beauty in Jesus in His Home, in His plans for eternal escapades, we would look forward to death. We would be invincible in persecution as we use weapons that are not carnal but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds.

Mark Batterson says, “It’s time to quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. It’s time to go all in and all out for the All in All. Pack your coffin!” 4

God is calling the young people of the conservative Anabaptist church in America to enter the stadium. He is calling us to get in the way of evil. We are to storm the gates of hell! He is calling our churches to send out men and women who abandon this life because of their focus on the reality of the next life. |

The following is taken from an interview with Clifford Schrock conducted by Reagan Schrock. Clifford is administrator and teacher at Sharon Mennonite Bible Institute where he has served for over ten years. He is best known for his classes on topics of nonresistance, apologetics, and separation from the world. Clifford lives with his family in Harrisonville, PA.

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The first thing to be said about nonresistance is that it is different from classical pacifism, in the sense that we do not think the government should not go to war, or that there is no place for capital punishment. The term ‘nonresistance’ is drawn primarily out of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus says to “resist not evil”1. Whether one is in business, in church, or is involved in some sort of government job or government responsibilities, Jesus’ commands of nonresistance still encompasses all of a Christian’s life. A Christian’s life should be unified, not splitting to say, “Here’s my secular life and here is my following Christ.” We must follow Christ in every area. Do we do that perfectly? Probably not, but that’s the call. The vision is to be like Christ and to respond to that calling in every area of our lives. Nonresistance doesn’t just mean that we don’t go to war; it’s a lifestyle.

Sometimes people understand nonresistance only in terms of the negative, by the things we don’t do, such as not going to war. Even the word itself, nonresistance, is in the negative. During one of my classes on this topic we talked a good bit about terminology and if there could be a better term for this principle. A possible replacement would be ‘radical love’, because that’s really what we are called to do‒to love our neighbor, to love our enemies‒and that becomes proactive, it becomes something we do. It also takes us far beyond passive nonresistance and simply backing out of the situation. Jesus did not call us to back out and walk away. He called us to do more. Sometimes when we use the term nonresistance we think we shouldn’t resist evil, and this has resulted in our having been given the label, “the quiet in the land”. That’s not all bad, but sometimes it’s gone too far and we haven’t gotten in the way of evil, to use Val Yoder’s expression. In a very proactive way, instead of passively doing nothing, we should be getting in the way of evil. The Scriptural principles of nonresistance, however, are what shapes how we get into the way of evil as followers of Christ. We don’t petition, protest, picket, try to force our agenda, or force the government or other people to do what we want them to do. We can appeal, we can pray, but those same aforementioned principles shape how we go about approaching those kinds of interventions.

In Matthew chapter 5 Jesus says, “…love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that you may be the children of your Father which is in heaven.”2 What does this look like in practical ways in our lives? I think it starts in the home and in our home relationships. We attempt to teach our children to not hit back, to do something nice, and that’s hard because it’s not natural. It goes against our natural grain. But as believers and as Christians we are empowered by the Holy Spirit to respond in those sorts of ways. We all encounter these kinds of situations. Even within the Christian body sometimes people do things that hurt us. How do we respond? Christ would call us to respond with grace, with love, with blessing, and to give the benefit of the doubt instead of responding with evil. It’s not just the classic question of, “What are you going to do when the madman comes into your house with a gun and he’s going to kill your whole family? Are you just going to sit back and let him do it?” That’s a hypothetical question; but what about the real questions and situations that we do face everyday? Paul writes in Romans 12, “Bless them which persecute you: bless, and curse not. Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.”3 This is very practical. When someone else gets something that we wanted, be it a position or a material thing, how do we respond? Do we respond with envy, jealousy, and harsh words, or do we respond by rejoicing with those that rejoice and weeping with those who weep?

“Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits. Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.”4

The New Testament vision of Christ for His Kingdom followers is not to overcome evil with bullets and bombs; He wants to overcome evil with good, kindness, and with love. Jesus wasn’t only mercy; He’s also truth and justice. Jesus does want us to speak truth and to confront sin when it needs to be confronted. Jesus is justice, but it’s also clear from this passage in Romans chapter 12 that He is the one who wants to retain that authority of justice. Vengeance is His, He will repay.5 In an atheistic worldview there’s really no ultimate justice, because Hitler dies, and he’s dead and gone like a dog—he escaped justice. But in a Christian worldview there is always justice. Either the individual will face justice at the end of life, or Christ paid the penalty and He met the justice. When we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.6 In Christ’s vision in the New Testament, He doesn’t call His followers to be the ministers of justice. He wants us to be ministers of truth and grace, but ultimately He is the Minister of Justice. Interestingly enough in Romans 12, where He says that we are not to be the ministers of justice and vengeance as His children, and that we are not to recompense evil for evil, He immediately goes on to talk about the role of the state in the beginning of chapter 13 and how they are the ministers of justice. Following that He comes back in verse 10 of Romans 13 and says, “Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.”7 He’s talking about love. He’s talking about how we respond to evil in our lives. God is the Minister of Justice, the state is His minister of justice within this world, but it’s not our call to do that. We are called to love and love is the fulfilling of the law.

The following is taken from an interview with Dean Taylor conducted by Reagan Schrock. Dean Taylor is a writer and traveling Bible teacher, as well as the author of “A Change of Allegiance”. He and his wife, Tania, are members of Altona Christian Community in Henderson, Minnesota.

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What is the essence of Anabaptism? When we talk about the essence of Anabaptism, one thing that needs to be addressed from the very beginning is that Anabaptism is not a denomination. In other words, there is not a church or denomination called “Anabaptists”. It’s not like United Methodist, or Mormon, or something like that. Just as there is a Protestant worldview and a Catholic worldview, so there is an Anabaptist worldview. When we say Anabaptist, we’re talking about an entire way to interpret the Scriptures. The essence of what is particular about the Anabaptist worldview is that it has a focus on Jesus Christ—on His teachings, His dreams for Humanity, His teachings to us—and putting those teachings into practice in our lifetime.

Conrad Grebel, one of the earliest Anabaptists from before 1525, wrote a letter to his friend Vadian, and in that letter, Vadian begins to pull away from the radicals that were studying with Zwingli in Zurich. Grebel hits on two things in that letter that are really striking. The first thing he said was, “I believe in the word of God without a complicated interpretation and out of this I speak.” So he’s saying that, when we look into the Scriptures and the Bible says something, we should just take it at face value; and actually, if you look at the different groups of radical movements throughout the world since the time of the Apostles, it seems like you get a bunch of people who get the word of God, open it up and just say “let’s do it”. For example, let’s say that we had an Anabaptist Study Bible. When we come to the passage of Scripture that says, “love your enemies”, there would be a footnote down at the bottom of the page that would then say, “What this really means is, ‘love your enemy’”.

The second thing he said in that letter was that the words of the Lord were meant to be put into practice. Now, everybody kind of says that to some degree, but not really. There was a difference with the Anabaptists from the very beginning. During the Protestant Reformation, which included the studies of Zwingli and all that was happening in Zurich, there were teachings about the grace of God and about the Holiness of God. The Anabaptists were loving every bit of that, but what they saw was that there was no putting into practice the actual teachings of Jesus. So instead of seeing the sayings of Jesus as some sort of meditation or something to be put into a different millennial, like when you’re in heaven, they saw these as the dreams of Jesus Christ. The teachings of Jesus Christ were for Humanity today. They were the cure for Humanity. So then there was this act of working out, of putting the teachings of Jesus into practice, and those things are what we can call the essence of early Anabaptism.

Really the teachings of Jesus are quite simple, but we over complicate things. Jesus gave us the idea that we should come to Him as a child. It’s not necessarily easy, but it is simple. For the first 300 years of the church, they took it very simply. What if we were to begin to ask “What if Jesus really meant every word He said?” If we were to go through the Sermon on the Mount and look at the issues Jesus addresses, such as the teachings on the permanence of marriage, on lawsuits, on our economics, on warfare, and if we were to go out of our way to create a church where everything that Jesus commanded us to do we did exactly the opposite, we would come up with something like the modern American Church. What if Jesus actually meant these things to be worked out into in our everyday lives?

So how is the Anabaptist approach to these teachings different than say an Evangelical or a Catholic who would also claim that they have a strong allegiance to those teachings? Again, we’re not talking about a denomination. The Anabaptist worldview emphasizes a focus on the teachings of Jesus. The Catholics, even the Evangelicals would all agree that the Word of God is completely true. Pondering this difference, while not being judgmental on anyone else, I asked the question, “Can a person be a follower of Jesus without following Jesus?” So basically some would say that, once you are saved and you become a follower of Christ, you don’t really have to be a follower as long as you are saying that you are identifying with Jesus. But are we living as followers as well?

Our Salvation is a person—it’s Jesus. Our Salvation is not a creed, or a doctrine, or a recognition in our mind. Our Salvation is the very person of Jesus Christ. Christ within us is salvation, not a mental assent to His death, not a mental assent to a certain Creed; but Christ within us, as being dead and born again into Christ. If our emphasis is that we are born again and safe, and everything else is kind of extra, then we’ve lost it. But if the emphasis is on the very person of Jesus Christ, then His salvation, His grace, His teaching, His life, His example become exactly that by which we want to mold ourselves. The difference between the Anabaptist and Evangelical view can be seen in Luther’s famous letter he wrote called “Sin Boldly”. In this letter Luther says, “It suffices that through God’s glory we have recognized the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world.” So in other words, a mental recognition, a mental assent to who Jesus is in the facts of His atonement. Luther says it “suffices” that we recognize who Jesus is. I say no. I think the scriptures say it’s suffices us when the Lamb of God is inside us and we are born again. If this is true and a reality in our lives, then all those passages where Jesus is talking about Judgement Day and about those who obey Him, make perfect sense. It’s still not us by our own strength; it’s Christ within us.

The early Church believed this way. When you read through the early Church writings, they believed that Jesus was the center of their faith, that His teachings were for Humanity. But then when we get to Constantine in 1325, there was a shift in which you could simply say the proper Creed and that meant you were now a Christian. The problem was not with the words of the Nicene Creed. The problem was that the focus was no longer on the practice of Christ within us and our salvation being found in Jesus. The emphasis began to be put on having a proper understanding of this Christology that they were propagating. The focus was no longer on the very person of Jesus Christ.

He has given us His plan for humanity. He has given us salvation and the Holy Spirit to live it out and He wants to live this in us. His teachings are for us; they’re for today and they’re beautiful, and will change the world. Some people of Evangelical background would say that the teachings of Jesus are for a new Millennial, or for heaven or something yet to come. But I heard someone ask once, “How hard is it to love your enemies in heaven?” These teachings are for today. They’re the cure for humanity. We need a Biblical hermeneutic that focuses on the teachings of Jesus Christ, believing the Word of God, and allowing His plan for humanity to be lived out in this world.

The team which forms Anabaptist Perspectives identifies, as you may expect, with the historic Anabaptists and contemporary expressions of that movement through our respective churches. Anabaptists, both present and past, have important insights; ones that could be of value to many. However, we have observed that media outlets are mostly void of this perspective and an accurate description of Anabaptist lifestyle is only minimally present online. Accessible resources to our history and beliefs is sadly lacking. Anabaptist Perspectives is an organized effort to help fill that void.

Every week we will be uploading a new podcast, video, and blog post that addresses many of the important matters that define who the Anabaptists are and how we interact with the world around us. Episodes on schedule to be released include topics such as war, peace, the simple life, refugees, farming culture, education, cultural change and more.

Most of our episodes will feature guests from Mennonite, Brethren, Hutterite, and other conservative Anabaptist groups who will address a variety of cultural, theological, social, and historical issues. Hopefully, through this the world will be encouraged towards thinking about old issues in new ways, new matters in more constructive ways, and difficult issues in better, more biblical and God-honoring ways.

Unfortunately, the task of representing the perspective of Anabaptism to the world comes with difficulty. Anabaptism has become a diverse category of Christianity; consequently, it would be wrong for us to pretend to represent all perspectives that are held by Anabaptists because the spectrum is broad and varied. So, be aware that we are coming from a conservative or moderately conservative background. Most of our guests will also come from relatively conservative perspectives. If you are an Anabaptist whose beliefs and lifestyle are not represented here, we apologize. Please understand that we sincerely want to honor God through what we communicate.

If you are not an Anabaptist, we are excited that you have found us! Please engage with what we communicate, ask questions, and provide feedback. As you listen, though, know that if the Anabaptists operating this podcast and channel was anyone other than us, you would hear things said just a bit differently.

Most importantly, though we identify as Anabaptists, our identity with Jesus Christ is of greater importance. We take seriously His call of discipleship—to take up our cross daily and follow him. We hope that this commitment to discipleship and love for Jesus is communicated with each episode of Anabaptist Perspectives.

You can subscribe to receive our weekly videos on YouTube, and follow our podcast on iTunes, Google Play, or SoundCloud. Thank you for stopping by. We look forward to seeing you next week.